Grounded
by Running Ninja
Summary: It's Link's 11th birthday and he's hardly landed in Skyloft for a month and reeks of bird. Under the guise of a lunch date, Zelda tempts the sky roaming blonde to the Knight Academy with a plan to root out the smell, and unearths a heart wrenching truth.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Legend of Zelda and no profit is being made from this story.**

**This story takes place on Link's eleventh birthday, so it's before any of the plot of Skyward Sword. It's part of a several chapter story idea I had about Link's childhood, but when I wrote this it stood out separately from the other events I was going to write and I've already done a fic about Link's childhood for Twilight Princess, "A Brother by the Name of Link", so I elected to opt out on that project. But enjoy this oneshot!**

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><p><strong>Grounded<strong>

"You smell like bird! When was the last time you washed, Link?" Zelda grunted as she wrestled the scruffy child into the bathing room, hastily throwing herself against the door and slamming it shut when Link managed to break free from her grasp.

"Hey, HEY! Let me out!" he tried to evade her, but it was no use. There was no hope at getting past Zelda when she was this determined. "I didn't do it, I swear!" he cried.

"Oh really? Getting defensive now, are you? Didn't do what? Should I tell my father on you?" she thrust her chin forward with authority as she stepped up to Link, forcing him back and further into the room, closer to her goal of the steaming water.

"No, no! I promise I didn't do anything!"

"Promise?" Zelda was chest to chest with the sky roaming blonde she'd managed to tempt from the blue, pushing him backwards up the stairs that led to the tub. She finally had caught and cornered the stray, and she wasn't letting him go without a body free from stench and a conscience thick with guilt.

"What promises have you kept lately, huh?" she asked, staring him down, hard azure eyes the same shade as the sky that Link had spent his past weeks gazing into, hoping to lose his sense of self amid its vastness. And just like the cobalt depth above him, he lost himself to the exquisite sapphire of her gaze, if only for a moment. The facets cut into her irises glittered in a hundred blues he could never name. That was enough of a distraction for the headmaster's daughter. She shoved the boy backwards into the tub, still fully clothed.

He thrashed amid the unexpected water, and she took the opportunity to dump soap all over him. "There! Now don't come out until you're all clean," she ordered, "You hear me, Link? It'll just be harder if you put up a fight!" she brushed her hands off and turned to leave Link to himself, striding to the door leading to the rest of the Knight Academy, the place where Zelda had spent most of her days since her mother had died.

"Wait! Zelda, wait! I don't have any clothes!" came the desperate call of the boy behind her.

"What do you mean, you don't have any clothes?" Zelda said shortly. She wasn't giving Link any excuses for not washing.

"I mean—I mean I don't have anything to put on now you've gotten me all wet!" Link exclaimed, raising his dripping sleeves from the water for emphasis. The water felt good against his skin, every pore clamoring to touch it. But his long dripping bangs were getting water in his eyes, burning them with soap and rending them agitated and bloodshot. He didn't want to admit it, but he badly needed a haircut and some new clothes. His garments were shredded from run-ins with Groose and bulleted with holes from wear and the adventures of a ragamuffin, not to mention discolored by sweat and dirt. Zelda had been being polite when she said he smelled like bird. He smelt like spoilt sweat, rancid and pungent, only slightly masked by the thick and heavy earth tones of bird and dirt, which could easily be pleasant and homey but did nothing for the poor boy flailing in the once bright blue water that was steadily darkening.

"Well, can't you get something?" Zelda was rather fed up with Link. Couldn't he take care of himself?

"Zelda, I don't _have_ anything."

Zelda paused. "Why, can't you get something from your—" she caught herself.

Parents. The unspoken word hung in the space plummeting between the two of them, audible as if Zelda said it aloud. Link didn't have parents, just as Zelda didn't have a mother.

Her mind clicked, flooded with a sudden rush of sympathy. Link spent all his time with his Loftwing because his Loftwing was all he had left. His home was someone else's now, and all the family furniture, all his little wooden carvings and tiny treasures were peddled away by strangers to pay off what his parents owed the potion makers.

Link didn't have a home. He was eleven years old today, and there was no family to sing to him over a cake. And here Zelda was, bitter from her own mother's passing and taking it out on him. But she still had her father. She still had a home, clothes, and a bed to crawl inside of when things were too much.

But neglect wasn't all that panged guilt across her heart strings. There was also rejection. She had found him crashed on their couch and scolded him for being so rude as to sleep over without being invited. And after a couple days of being told off by his best friend, he'd never been found in their house again. He had told everybody that he was staying with his uncle Frank, but there was no such uncle. They had all bought the lie, herself included. She remembered her father scratching his head when one of his knights told her that the old man Frank had been dead for three years when Gaepora had tried to send him a letter regarding the boy's scruffiness. And still Zelda had not seen the helplessness of the boy cast to the winds with only a bird to carry him through the death of his parents.

"Link…" Zelda's voice took on the soft cadence of pity. Link shook his head and, wiping back the tears sprouting from a long rooted sorrow, stood from the pool of water and walked forcefully towards the door. The sudden absence of warm water made him cold.

"No! You can't leave!" Zelda tried to block his way, but he shoved her aside with an unseen brutality, his eyes flared with humiliation. "Link!" she cried again, and it was too much for the runaway. He bolted.

Tears and attempts to mop them smeared his vision into a concoction of color. He ran blindly down the hall. No, he would not let them pity him. He wouldn't—it wasn't part of—

Link collided directly with Pipit, only a few years older than the disheveled guttersnipe and starting his first year at the Academy. Link was knocked back by Pipit's older height and bulk, stature hardened by training even through his young years. And the little boy fell to the floor, tears streaking down his face and sniffles blockading him in a world thick with misery.

"Link! Are you all right?"

The little boy stood without a word and tried to walk past Pipit, ashamed that another had seen him like this. He wobbled on his feet and tried to keep walking, but the taller Pipit caught his shoulder.

"Link, are you okay?"

The blubbering orphan pushed away Pipit's arm and dashed for the door. If he could just get outside—

"Link! Are you all right?" He hadn't been fast enough.

"No!" the boy screeched, "Let me go!"

"Link, what's the matter?"

"Let me go! I just want to go! Leave me alone!"

"Link, it's okay, just—"

"No!" Link wailed, sobbing full on now, snot and tears streaking his face as he fought the older boy who held him still, secure arms wrapped around the helpless child who writhed desperately to escape. "It's not okay!" Link yelled, "It's never going to be okay! Don't say that! Don't tell lies! Mom said it was going to be okay, but she's gone now! And so is Dad! Let me GO!"

"Link, it's okay—"

"NO!" shrieked Link, in one unending scream graveled by tears and grief kicked up by the wheels of strife, "I don't want to be here! I want to go, go away! I want to jump off a sky dock and never be caught! Let me go!"

Zelda stared from up the hall, watching Link's world crumble around him, the ruins of a building that was supposed to still be under construction. Some birthday she'd given him.

Pipit began to haul the struggling and wailing Link away, down the corridor towards Master Gaepora's room. "Calm down, Link—" he tried, but the little boy was beyond reason, transforming the halls into an echo chamber of lament as his howls rang against the walls, ugly and harsh and coloring the corridor with stabs of anguish. Down below, the cook paused over her simmering charge to scrutinize the sound. A student reading a book in his quarters was dragged from the ink labyrinth in which he had been swimming, pulled to the jarring shore of reality by the agony of an eleven year old he'd seen once or twice around the town.

Pipit flung the headmaster's door open, and Link tumbled to the floor, released by Pipit to the freedom of a sobbing, soaked, sniffling wreck whimpering against the carpet.

"I'm terribly sorry to disturb you, Headmaster, but I couldn't let him fling himself off of Skyloft," Pipit apologized.

"It's not like it would've worked," Link sniveled, "I tried and my bird caught me anyway, even if I didn't call it."

Gaepora's eyes softened and he stooped to the miserable orphan's level. "I know it's hard losing your parents, Link, but doing something like that won't solve anything."

"Yes it will. I won't have to worry about catching cold or being attacked by monsters in the middle of night while asleep or stranded on a lonely island by the dark. I won't have to worry about bothering you or Zelda or the cook or anybody else when I get hungry, and I won't have to worry about…worry about _them_ anymore, whether or not they're okay wherever they are."

Gaepora's heart broke and he spoke softly to the hiccupping child. "I know it hurts, Link, and I know its hard, but you can't go and throw yourself away just because things are tough right now."

Zelda peeked in through the cracked door. Link, oblivious, continued to mumble. "Why not? The only thing that cares about me is my bird. He was the only thing there for me when I jumped before."

"Link! That's not true and you know it!" Zelda yelled, bursting fully into the room and glaring at him through tear-sparkled eyes. "I care about you! Pipit cares about you! Why else would I invite you to lunch and drag you to the bath and try to get you to clean yourself up? Why would Pipit keep you from running away when you wouldn't answer his questions? Because we care about you, Link! And we want what's best for you! And what's best for you isn't spending all day alone thinking about your dead parents! You think it's rough, huh? Well you're not the only one who lost somebody to that plague!"

"Zelda," Gaepora warned.

"No, father! Link needs to get out of this self-pitying mess and get his butt back into the bath and wash himself up! Pipit, you help him! He's not getting any better feeling miserable about his life!" She stomped over to the boy and yanked him to his feet, spinning him towards herself brusquely. "Now go clean yourself up! You still smell like bird!" She shoved him toward the door. Pipit took Link's shoulder and led him out of the office hurriedly, closing the door behind them.

There was a moment of calm before Zelda turned to her silenced father. "Father, you need to sign Link up for sword lessons with Eagus. He needs something to occupy himself with before he's old enough to be a part of the academy," she announced, striding out of the office and down the stairs, where she sat fuming in the kitchen in front of what soon became a cold bowl of soup. But with her meal cooled her rage, and empty and drained she let her face drop into in her hands, not crying but wracked with worry for the boy with the crimson loftwing.

And upstairs, Pipit lent Link some of his old clothes and told the boy he could share his room at the academy until another opened up. And Link nodded, mute with shock at Zelda's words. Night came and Link stared up at a ceiling of stucco instead of stars for the first time in a month. The world was softer now, cushioned with blankets and sheltered from the wind, a warm place where he fell asleep not because it was an escape from the cold but because he was safe and he didn't need to be awake anymore. His body yielded to exhaustion and his month of sleeping rough in the world eclipsed.

And Link the sleepyhead dreamed of the headmaster's daughter.

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><p><strong>"Pain nourishes courage. You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you. " -Mary Tyler Moore<strong>

Hehehe, did anybody else think of Ilia when in the opening cutscenes of Skyward Sword Zelda wheels on her father about how Link hasn't been practicing? And then Link's cringe...hahaha! Really, just Link's facial expressions in both those games are awesome.

If you liked this, please favorite, review, or just check out the other stories on my profile! Thanks and happy reading to all of you!

Ninja out.


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